The War Episode 2: Bikie kingpin Mark Buddle isolated and paranoid in his Turkish fortress

Mark Buddle is isolated from his daughters and hasn’t seen his in-laws for three years, unable to return to Australia. WATCH episode 2 now of our exclusive documentary series to see how he ended up in Turkey.

The country’s most notorious bikie in exile, Mark Buddle, has become isolated and paranoid in his Mediterranean fortress as Australian authorities close in on him, it can be revealed.

The multi-millionaire fugitive fled his glittering life in Dubai with his glamorous Sydney partner Melanie Ter Wisscha by his side in the wake of last year’s Australian Federal Police Operation Ironside encrypted phone sting.

The AN0M operation shook the underworld when it emerged the app was in fact a trojan horse from the FBI and Australian Federal Police to listen in on everything being said by the criminal networks.

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Buddle is now isolated from his daughters, hasn’t seen family in Australia for years, can’t return here for fear of being arrested and, as a source said “they haven’t exactly laid out the welcome mat” for him in his new home in Turkey.

Buddle and his partner left their two young daughters behind in their luxurious home on the Palm Islands in Dubai, not thinking they would never go back. Buddle hasn’t seen them since with sources saying he is afraid to return to Dubai for fear of being extradited to Australia.

Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle fled from Dubai to Turkey after the Operation Ironside sting.

One of Ms Ter Wisscha’s sisters is believed to be looking after the girls.

Buddle, 44, lost his mother in 2018. Unable to attend her funeral, he paid $45,000 for a gold coffin.

Buddle’s glamorous partner Mel Ter Wisscha by the water at the D.Maris Bay Resort in Turkey.

His wife has also been isolated from her family with sources saying that despite reports to the contrary, she has not been back to visit her family since 2018 for fear of not being allowed to leave.

Buddle now calls Northern Cyprus home, where the local media had a field day when they learned one of Australia’s most wanted men was living in their midst. A disputed part of Cyprus, Northern Cyprus is viewed by Turkey as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

While some of his Turkish-born mates including drug trafficker Hakan Ayik have been welcomed back with open arms, an article in Bakirkoy Gazetesi claimed Buddle was “a dark man” involved in a number of arms-length developments and that: “Buddle is under protection by a group of business people as well as official authorities”.

In return, Buddle, who has previously boasted to Australian police about burying people alive, threatened the local journalists that they would have to be “scraped from the ground with a razor” if they wrote about him.

Buddle left his two young daughters behind. They are believed to be staying with Ms Ter Wisscha’s sisters.

The Daily Telegraph revealed earlier this year Buddle was granted residency in the Turkish enclave because it was thought he would bring “high income to the country”.

Worth an estimated $100m made from drug trafficking, the man who grew up in a Maroubra housing commission unit can afford to keep himself at a distance from Australian law enforcement but his Mediterranean fortress has become a gilded cage.

The exiled bikie boss Mark Buddle (Bald, shirtless, tattoos) was involved in a scuffle with a group of British tourists at an upmarket beach restaurant in Dubai.

Comanchero president Mick Hawi at the Sapphire Suite Nightclub in Kings Cross in 2006. Buddle was named during Hawi’s murder trial.

The tattooed hardman left Australia with his wife in 2016 after being named as a person of interest in the fatal 2010 shooting of cash-in-transit security guard Gary Allibon. He has not come back since, for fear of being arrested.

Then he was named during the murder trial of Comanchero bikie king he replaced, Mick Hawi, as having had a “long running feud” with Hawi around the time he was shot dead.

Hawi, 37, was ambushed after he finished a workout at Rockdale Fitness First, in the city‘s south, in February 2018, when Buddle was already overseas.

Buddle took over leadership of the Comanchero after Hawi was jailed over the 2009 fatal Sydney Airport brawl with the Hells Angels.

As Comanchero ranks became strained in 2017 because of the power vacuum left by Buddle fleeing overseas, he texted the bikies: “I’m the f--king commander of the world … no one is to touch another member or set up another chapter without my permission.”

He has also been the subject of several other police investigations and named in Operation Ironside court documents as being in the midst of a deadly conflict with gangster Mejid Hamzy, 44, when Hamzy was gunned down outside his Western Sydney home in October 2020.

Police will allege Hamzy had put out a contract to find someone to kill Buddle but Buddle got in first in the ­belief that Hamzy stole a 400kg drug shipment worth $39m which Buddle had smuggled into Australia.

Former Comancheros boss Fidel Tukel at a party with Mark Buddle (middle) and Duax Ngakuru (right), who were caught up in the AN0M sting.

His paranoia after the AN0M debacle is said to have put an end to his extravagant lifestyle. He reportedly once hired a private jet to fly himself and friends to the US Super Bowl.

Ms Ter Wisscha continues to stand by him despite allegations in Sydney’s Central Local Court in 2012 of serious domestic abuse. He allegedly slapped, choked her and threatened to “slit” her throat because he thought she was cheating on him.

At the start of a family holiday two years later on the Gold Coast, he was arrested over a confrontation with police on the Gold Coast.

Southport Magistrates Court was told the bikie boss had smashed a police car window with his head and told a police officer he was going to “rape his family in front of him and kill him” after police refused to let him talk to his partner and daughter.

The court also heard he told police he had “killed people and buried them alive”.